Read Online Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind by Mark Pagel - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mark Pagel
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thousands of generations of parents and their offspring, and the individuals watching them, this species produced the same basic tool. Their culture—their toolkit—wasn’t evolving, and this is not what we expect of an animal with social learning. It is not even clear that the Neanderthals possessed the capabilities for social learning, or if they did, they were not nearly as sophisticated as ours. The Neanderthals would have been recognizably similar to us, yet hauntingly different, being stocky and muscular, with large bulbous noses. But despite having brains at least as big as ours, the Neanderthals lacked most of the outward signs of sophisticated culture so common to modern human archaeological sites of the same period. The Neanderthals did not produce any art, they didn’t have musical instruments, and there is no evidence that they carved figures.
Chauvinism? Some will say yes, and the Neanderthals have their apologists. But at a time when modern humans were overflowing with sophisticated artifacts, there is no evidence that Neanderthals could engrave or shape bones, they had no sewing, no weaving, no bows and arrows, and no spear throwers, even though they would have been able to observe all of these things among the talented newcomers who had moved in right alongside them. Some Neanderthal archaeological sites yield shaped pieces of shells that might have been used as jewelry, and other sites suggest that they added symbolic objects such as flowers to graves. (Burial itself should not be taken as any sort of religious, spiritual, or symbolic act. Dead bodies decay rapidly and attract flies and predators, so burial is simply a prudent thing to do.) But even these practices seem only to appear when Neanderthals had prolonged exposure to modern humans, and very recent evidence suggesting that Neanderthals actually produced and wore pieces of jewelry is now being reinterpreted as the work of Homo sapiens . The paleontologist Chris Stringer has even speculated on a BBC radio program that if there were slight changes in some Neanderthals’ capabilities late in their history, this might reflect brain genes they had acquired from their interbreeding with modern humans.
This description of the Neanderthals is not what we expect of a species with true social learning. No one can be sure, but we can only guess that the mental life of the Neanderthals was, and still is for all other animals, a plodding, inflexible, literal, and unimaginative existence, at least compared to ours. While we were spreading around the world, the Neanderthals’ limited technologies meant they were confined almost exclusively to the environments of Western Europe, parts of the Middle East, and southern Siberia. While we were using sophisticated spears and arrows to hunt large mammals, the Neanderthals were close-range hunters with short spears for jabbing, or who relied on clubbing or stoning their large prey—and each other—to death. The Neanderthals’ famously robust and muscular physique probably speaks volumes about their lack of cultural complexity, while our gracile and refined appearance trumpets our virtuosity at substituting tools and clever thinking for brute physical force.
The Neanderthals’ stocky build made them well adapted to the cold climates of much of Europe and Eurasia, but the irony is that our species—whose tall and slender bodies were certainly not cold-adapted—replaced the Neanderthals during the Ice Age that engulfed these lands. It seems the Neanderthals simply could not adapt their lifestyle of hunting for large game rapidly enough to the declining populations of large animals that the encroaching ice would cause. But we could, and the difference is probably down to social learning. Or think of it this way. Twenty-eight thousand years ago, the Neanderthals sat in Gibraltar going extinct while gazing across the straits to the warmer climes of Africa clearly visible only eight to ten miles away, but they were
Chauvinism? Some will say yes, and the Neanderthals have their apologists. But at a time when modern humans were overflowing with sophisticated artifacts, there is no evidence that Neanderthals could engrave or shape bones, they had no sewing, no weaving, no bows and arrows, and no spear throwers, even though they would have been able to observe all of these things among the talented newcomers who had moved in right alongside them. Some Neanderthal archaeological sites yield shaped pieces of shells that might have been used as jewelry, and other sites suggest that they added symbolic objects such as flowers to graves. (Burial itself should not be taken as any sort of religious, spiritual, or symbolic act. Dead bodies decay rapidly and attract flies and predators, so burial is simply a prudent thing to do.) But even these practices seem only to appear when Neanderthals had prolonged exposure to modern humans, and very recent evidence suggesting that Neanderthals actually produced and wore pieces of jewelry is now being reinterpreted as the work of Homo sapiens . The paleontologist Chris Stringer has even speculated on a BBC radio program that if there were slight changes in some Neanderthals’ capabilities late in their history, this might reflect brain genes they had acquired from their interbreeding with modern humans.
This description of the Neanderthals is not what we expect of a species with true social learning. No one can be sure, but we can only guess that the mental life of the Neanderthals was, and still is for all other animals, a plodding, inflexible, literal, and unimaginative existence, at least compared to ours. While we were spreading around the world, the Neanderthals’ limited technologies meant they were confined almost exclusively to the environments of Western Europe, parts of the Middle East, and southern Siberia. While we were using sophisticated spears and arrows to hunt large mammals, the Neanderthals were close-range hunters with short spears for jabbing, or who relied on clubbing or stoning their large prey—and each other—to death. The Neanderthals’ famously robust and muscular physique probably speaks volumes about their lack of cultural complexity, while our gracile and refined appearance trumpets our virtuosity at substituting tools and clever thinking for brute physical force.
The Neanderthals’ stocky build made them well adapted to the cold climates of much of Europe and Eurasia, but the irony is that our species—whose tall and slender bodies were certainly not cold-adapted—replaced the Neanderthals during the Ice Age that engulfed these lands. It seems the Neanderthals simply could not adapt their lifestyle of hunting for large game rapidly enough to the declining populations of large animals that the encroaching ice would cause. But we could, and the difference is probably down to social learning. Or think of it this way. Twenty-eight thousand years ago, the Neanderthals sat in Gibraltar going extinct while gazing across the straits to the warmer climes of Africa clearly visible only eight to ten miles away, but they were
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